Juxtapostion
by mangoism
Summary: Death has a sense of humor. One shot.


**First off, disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**

**Second: The text at the beginning is from the seventh Harry Potter book. I did not write it. **

**Third: This was co-written with Es99se. She wrote the first scene (not the expert) and I wrote the rest. The idea was also mine. I strongly suggest you read her works. Her profile is: u/4306180/es99se**

* * *

The crowd was afraid, and silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other.

"I don't want anyone else to help," Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

Voldemort hissed.

"Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "This isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"

"Nobody," said Harry simply. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good . . . ."

"One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taut and his red eyes stared, a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?".

"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" asked Harry. They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance from each other, and for Harry no face existed but Voldemort's. "Accident, when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

"Accidents!" screamed Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and the watching crowd was frozen as if Petrified, and of the hundreds in the Hall, nobody seemed to breathe but they two. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into red.

"You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people - "

"But you did not!"

" - I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"

"You dare -"

"Yes, I dare," said Harry. "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"

Voldemort did not speak, but prowled in a circle, and Harry knew that he kept him temporarily mesmerized at bay, held back by the faintest possibility that Harry might indeed know a final secret . . . .

"Is it love again?" said Voldemort, his snake's face jeering. "Dumbledore favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like and old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter – and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"

"Just one thing," said Harry, and still they circled each other, wrapped in each other, held apart by nothing but the last secret.

"If it is not love that will save you this time," said Voldemort, "you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"

"I believe both," said Harry, and he saw shock flit across the snakelike face, though it was instantly dispelled; Voldemort began to laugh, and the sound was more frightening than his screams; humorless and insane, it echoed around the silent Hall.

"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"

"Oh he dreamed of it," said Harry, "but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done."

"You mean he was weak!" screamed Voldemort. "Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"

"No, he was cleverer than you," said Harry, "a better wizard, a better man."

"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"

"You thought you did," said Harry, "but you were wrong."

For the first time, the watching crowd stirred as the hundreds of people around the walls drew breath as one.

"Dumbledore is dead!" Voldemort hurled the words at Harry as though they would cause him unendurable pain. "His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle, I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!"

"Yes, Dumbledore is dead," said Harry calmly, "but you didn't have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant."

"What childish dream is this?" said Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and his red eyes did not waver from Harry's.

"Severus Snape wasn't yours," said Harry. "Snape was Dumbledore's. Dumbledore's from the moment you starting hunting down my mother. And you never realized it because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"

Voldemort did not answer. They continued to circle each other like wolves about to tear each other apart.

"Snape's Patronus was a doe," said Harry, "the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children.

You should have realized," he said as he saw Voldemort's nostrils flare, "he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"

"He desired her, that was all," sneered Voldemort, "but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him - "

"Of course he told you that," said Harry, "but he was Dumbledore's spy from the moment you threatened her, and he's been working against you ever since! Dumbledore was already dying when Snape finished him!"

"It matters not!" shrieked Voldemort, who had followed every word with rapt attention, but now let out a cackle of mad laughter. "It matters not whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's, or what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path! I crushed them as I crushed your mother, Snape's supposed great love! Oh, but it all makes sense, Potter, and in ways that you do not understand!

"Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, little boy – I reached the wand before you could get your hands on it, I understood the truth before you caught up. I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny is truly mine! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!"

"Yeah, it did." said Harry. "You're right. But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you think what you've done ... Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle . . . ."

"Remorse?" Voldemort laughed, his voice echoing through the hall. "Do you really think that, Potter?" He paused for a moment before continuing. "But I grow tired of this. _Kill._" The last word was hissed in Parsaltongue.

From behind Harry, Nagini rose up, swaying belligerently. With an undecipherable hiss, showing long ivory fangs, and struck.

Harry's eyes opened whide for one infinite moment just as Nagini attacked. He swayed shakily, then crumpled onto the mud-streaked floor. He writhed and spasamed as te venom slowly took effect. He tried to grasp his wand but couldn't muster the strength to lift his arm and murmur a spell.

The onlookers stood paralized with fear, their eyes fixed on Harryno matter how hard they tried to lift their gaze. There was not a sound in the hall.

Finally Voldemort broke the silence. "This is far too slow," he remarked causually, and with a lazy twist of his wand, shot a stream of sickly green light at the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry's body immediatly became still as the echo of the last two words spoken drifted through the crowd.

"Avada kedavra."

-

Harry blinked open his vivid green eyes and glanced around. He was slouched in a plump armchair in a room finely decorated in alabaster. Shades of ivory tiled the floor. The walls were a pale cream, but it just made the white seem brighter.

It was only when he started scanning the furniture that Harry noticed the room's other girl was beautiful, with golden-red hair that curled over a pale, ovaluar face. Her wide, honey-brown eyes were fixed on Harry, full lips - she was wearing bright pink lipstick, he noticed - curved in an amused smile. A hot pink t-shirt (she seemed to like the color) lay over a very feminine figure. She was fingering an ivory charm shaped like an ankh - the symbol of life - that hung on a silver chain around her neck. How had he not noticed her?

"Because I didn't want you to," the girl said, breaking the silence. "Yes, I can read thoughts. No, you can't hide them from me. Let's move on."

Harry stared at her. He was pretty sure that with training, legilmency didn't effect wizards. Of course he could hide his thoughts. Snape had trained him in occulmancy. Well, tried to, anyway. He wasn't very good a it.

"Your feeble magic doesn't make a diffrence," the girl insisted. Harry was getting annoyed. His magic wasn't feeble and she should stop talking in riddles. "Really. I guess I should introduce myself." She smirked. "Name's Death."

Harry stared at the girl - Death - until she sighed. "What were you expecting? This?" Her skin paled and turned white, even as her hair and eyes blackened. The t-shirt and jeans were replaced with sleek onyx garments. "Or perhaps this?" This time Death took the figure Harry was used to - that of a grim reaper; a tall skeleton wearing a long, dark robe. "Honestly," she returned to her ginger-haired form. "You mortals get really annoying. Why would I want to be some gloomy skeleton when I could look like - " she gestured to her body " - this?"

Harry's tongue was dry and he could think of nothing to say. Death narrowed her eyes and studied him. "What shall I do with you?" She frowned, the words an annoyed buzz. "Ah! I have an idea."

"What is it?" Harry inquired. He was dead, should he be going to heaven or the place down below?

"No, it would be so much funner to reincarnate you," Death murmured absetly in response to his thoughts. "Parell lifelines, I think." She grinned. "I have the perfect body.

* * *

_"Kill,"_ the Master hissed and Nagini slithered toward the Boy. She rose, swaying hypnotically, and darted forward. As her glistening fangs enetered the Boy's body and he crumpled to the ground, one thought filled her mind.

Why am I killing myself?


End file.
